Today at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019, Intel announced the Intel FPGA Programmable Acceleration Card N3000 (Intel FPGA PAC N3000), designed for service providers to enable 5G next-generation core and virtualized radio access network solutions. The Intel FPGA PAC N3000 accelerates many virtualized workloads, ranging from 5G radio access networks to core network applications.

"As the mobile and telecommunications industry gears up for an explosion in internet protocol traffic and 5G rollouts, we designed the Intel FPGA PAC N3000 to provide the programmability and flexibility with the performance, power efficiency, density and system integration capabilities the market needs to fully support the capabilities of 5G networks," said Reynette Au, Intel vice president of marketing, Programmable Solutions Group.

ASUS formally launched its Republic of Gamers (ROG) Dominus, the sole available motherboard option for Intel Xeon W-3175X unlocked quasi-HEDT processor. Cowcotland scored its price in the old continent to be a whopping 1,550€, making it the most expensive client-segment motherboard (at least in the past 20 years of PC history). Built in the SSI-EEB form-factor, this board is designed for overclocking the 28-core/56-thread Xeon chip, which is capable of pulling over 1000W of power (just the CPU) under extreme overclocking. The processor itself is priced around 3,100€ including VAT. Add a matching hexa-channel DDR4 memory kit such as these Trident Z Royal ones, and your platform cost could easily touch 5,500€.

Intel posted an open-source video encoder for the new AV1 video format, targeted at online streaming servers that process large amounts of online videos for streaming. The new SVT-AV1 (Scalable Video Technology-AV1), is an BSD-2-Clause-Patent licensed video encoder that supports Linux, Windows, and MacOS operating systems, optimized for Intel Xeon Scalable processors based on the "Skylake" microarchitecture and older, as it probably leverages the AVX-512 instruction-set. It has some pretty steep hardware requirements from a client viewpoint, but nothing big video stream service providers can't afford: 48 GB of minimum RAM for a 10 bpc 4K stream, or 16 GB for a Full-HD stream. The encoder can scale up to 112 logical processors. Intel earlier offered a similar encoder for the proprietary H.265/HEVC format, with SVT-HEVC. You can inspect and grab SVT-AV1 from Intel's Git.

In time with Intel's launch of the new Xeon W-3175X 28-core workstation CPU today, Asetek has announced their first, and only to date, certified CPU cooler for the processor. The cooler, code-named 690LX-PN, is a closed loop liquid cooler developed in collaboration with Intel, and approved by the latter to be used with the 28-core behemoth that no doubt needs more ample cooling than most of Intel's desktop offerings. It is rated for a 500 W TDP, thanks to the use of a triple 120 m radiator (copper/brass instead of aluminium, for a change) with fans pre-installed, and their latest Gen6-s pump integrated with a copper cold plate.

The cold plate in question is fairly large relative to the pump, which indicates that the cooling engine itself is not necessarily optimized for the larger heatspreader on the CPU. The cooler is only compatible with this CPU platform, and is also the only cooler approved by Intel for the platform as of the time of this post. It is available for purchase on the Asetek web shop, and comes with a 2-year warranty.

The Intel Xeon W-3175X processor is available today. This unlocked 28-core workstation powerhouse is built for select, highly-threaded and computing-intensive applications such as architectural and industrial design and professional content creation. Built for handling heavily threaded applications and tasks, the Intel Xeon W-3175X processor delivers uncompromising single- and all-core world-class performance for the most advanced professional creators and their demanding workloads.

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP), a leading storage, network and computing solution provider, today launched the Intel Xeon E based TS-x83XU enterprise NAS series with ECC DDR4 memory that delivers server-class performance and dependable reliability. All models in the series feature two 10GbE SFP+ ports using Mellanox ConnectX -4 Lx SmartNIC controllers and support installing a PCIe graphics card for empowering video surveillance, virtual machines and AI applications. Coupled with QNAP's exclusive software-defined SSD extra over-provisioning and comprehensive virtualization capabilities, the TS-x83XU series provides a high-performance and dependable - yet cost-efficient - NAS solution for uncompromising enterprise IT requirements.

The TS-x83XU was specifically designed for enterprises that require server-class standards of performance and reliability for business-critical data and applications," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "businesses and organizations can unlock greater application potential and increase their everyday working efficiency by leveraging game-changing features such as PCIe expandability, SSD-optimization technologies, and tiered storage."

So... Do you want Intel's own HCC CPU in an overclocker-friendly package? But you want in a Xeon branding and envelope, surely, because that's the only place where you can get one of these right now. Well, Intel has you covered - for $4000. Retailers in Europe, hunted by Tom's Hardware, have begun to take stock of these CPUs, and in doing so, current pricing overs around that magic $4,000 mark - at the least. Prices still haven't stabilized due to the low number of outlets offering the CPU right now, and it's likely that when it does, it will stabilize to this lowest common denominator.

The Xeon W-3175X is built on Intel's 14 nm ++ manufacturing lines, features 28 physical cores with HyperThreading, features base/boost clocks of 3.1 / 4.3 GHz respectively, support hexa-channel DDR4 memory, and offers 44 PCIe lanes. It also has a 255 W TDP. Compare these specs to AMD's Threadripper 2990WX with its 32 physical, 64 logical cores, quad-channel DDR4 support, 64 PCIe lanes, 250 W TDP (non-comparable) and $1,799 (very comparable) pricing... Well. Add in the platform cost for one of these Intel babies, with a 3,647-pin LGA3647 motherboard (some feature the most ridiculous power delivery systems you could ever think of, btw, at 32 phases).. with the requirement for 4x eight-pin EPS power connectors and 2x 24-pin connectors. Have fun.

For years Intel was able to maintain their endless tick-tock cycle however with the switch from 14nm to 10nm Intel realized all too late that they had bitten off more than they could chew. According to Robert Swan, Intel's Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, "we set out in the transition to 10 nm to attempt to scale much faster than we ever had at a time when I think most would argue the technology and the science and the challenges are more challenging they've ever been. So, we took a fairly aggressive scaling factor, roughly 2x of what the competitors do. So, we went for the analogy that a grand slam, I think, when the competition was hitting really solid singles."

Essentially Intel had hedged their bets that they could take a revolutionary step instead of the more typical evolutionary one thereby leaving their competition behind. Instead, it's resulted in the current situation that we are all very much aware of, that Intel is far behind their original predicted schedule. While that timeline has since been revised and they are now on course to release 10nm products in 2019, and 2020 Intel has also made it known that they plan to regain their leadership position as that transition begins.

ASUS announced the Gaming Station GS50, which its product managers refer to as a "gaming station," so someone at big oil can blow steam off on Battlefield after a long day's work exploring shale (at least that's a use-case we can imagine). The GS50 is powered by an Intel Xeon W-2155 processor, which is a 10-core/20-thread chip clocked at 3.30 GHz to 4.50 GHz (turbo), packing 13.75 MB of L3 cache. This processor is essentially a Core i9-7900X with Xeon-exclusive features such as up to 512 GB ECC memory support, MPX, TXT, Boot Guard, etc. ASUS is offering RDIMM memory options all the way up to 512 GB.

Adding to its "gaming" credentials is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics. Quadro RTX series is not even provided as an option. For storage, you get a 512 GB M.2-2280 SATA 6 Gbps SSD, and a 3 TB HDD for recovery and cold storage. Among the storage expansion options are additional M.2-NVMe slots, five more SATA ports, and a U.2 port. Networking includes two 1 GbE interfaces pulled by two Intel "server class" Ethernet controllers. A 700W 80 Plus Gold-certified PSU powers the machine. ASUS didn't reveal pricing.

Intel is reportedly working tirelessly to launch its "Cascade Lake" Xeon Scalable 48-core enterprise processor before year-end, according to a launch window timeline slide leaked by datacenter hardware provider QCT. The slide suggests a late-Q4 thru Q1-2019 launch timeline for the XCC (extreme core count) version of "Cascade Lake," which packs 48 CPU cores across two dies on an MCM. This launch is part of QCT's "early shipment program," which means select enterprise customers can obtain the hardware in pre-approved quantities. In other words, this is a limited launch, but one that's probably enough to upstage AMD's 7 nm EPYC "Rome" 64-core processor launch.

It's only by late-Q1 thru Q2-2019 that the Xeon "Cascade Lake" family would be substantially launched, including lower core-count variants that are still 2-die MCMs. This aligns to preempt or match AMD's 7 nm EPYC family rollout through 2019. "Cascade Lake" is probably Intel's final enterprise microarchitecture to be built on the 14 nm++ node, and consists of 2-die multi-chip modules that feature 48 cores, and a 12-channel memory interface (6-channel per die); with 88-lane PCIe from the CPU socket. The processor is capable of multi-socket configurations. It will also be Intel's launch platform for substantially launching its Optane Persistent Memory product series.

GIGABYTE today introduced the C246-WU4, a workstation-grade socket LGA1151 motherboard based on Intel C246 chipset, with support for the recently announced Xeon E-2100 series, in addition to 8th and 9th generation Core processors. With Xeon processors installed, it supports up to 128 GB ECC memory. 9th Generation Core processors let you use up to 128 GB non-ECC memory. 8th generation ones cap out at 64 GB non-ECC. The board also supports many of the vPro enterprise features that the Q370 Express chipset offers.

Built in the standard ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and optional 4-pin ATX, and uses an 8+2 phase VRM to condition power for the CPU. Expansion slots include four PCI-Express 3.0 x16, from which slots 1 and 3 are wired to the CPU, and share an x16 link (x16/NC or x8/x8), while slots 2 and 4 are gen 3.0 x4, and wired to the PCH. There's also a legacy PCI slot driven by a bridge chip. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 PCIe with gen 3.0 x4 wiring, each; and ten SATA 6 Gbps ports, from which eight are driven by the PCH, and two from an ASMedia ASM1061 chip. Network connectivity includes two 1 GbE interfaces, one driven by an Intel i219-V, and the other by i211-AT, with vPro support. USB connectivity includes USB 3.1 gen 2, including type-C rear-panel ports. The onboard audio features a Realtek ALC1220VB, which is EMI shielded, and wired to WIMA capacitors. Expect this board to be priced around $350.

Intel today announced two new members of its Intel Xeon processor portfolio: Cascade Lake advanced performance (expected to be released the first half of 2019) and the Intel Xeon E-2100 processor for entry-level servers (general availability today). These two new product families build upon Intel's foundation of 20 years of Intel Xeon platform leadership and give customers even more flexibility to pick the right solution for their needs.

"We remain highly focused on delivering a wide range of workload-optimized solutions that best meet our customers' system requirements. The addition of Cascade Lake advanced performance CPUs and Xeon E-2100 processors to our Intel Xeon processor lineup once again demonstrates our commitment to delivering performance-optimized solutions to a wide range of customers," said Lisa Spelman, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon products and data center marketing.

QNAP Systems, Inc. introduces the brand-new TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS, an all-in-one AI solution combining robust storage and a ready-to-use software environment that simplifies AI workflows with high cost-efficiency. Built using next-gen Intel Xeon W processors with up to 18 cores and employing a hybrid storage architecture with eight hard drives and twenty high-performance SSDs (including 4 U.2 SSDs), the TS-2888X also supports installing up to 4 high-end graphics cards and runs QNAP's AI developer package "QuAI". The TS-2888X packs everything required for machine learning AI to help organizations quickly and easily implement AI applications.

"Compared with typical AI workstations, the TS-2888X combines high-performance computing with huge-capacity storage to greatly reduce latency, accelerate data transfer, and to eliminate performance bottlenecks caused by network connectivity," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "integrating AI-focused hardware and software reduces the time and complexity for implementing and managing AI tasks, making the TS-2888X the ideal AI solution for most organizations."

Intel Corporation today reported third-quarter 2018 financial results. Third-quarter revenue of $19.2 billion was an all-time record, up 19 percent YoY driven by broad business strength and customer preference for performance-leading products. The Client Computing Group (CCG), the Data Center Group (DCG), the Internet of Things Group (IOTG), the Non-volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG) and Mobileye all achieved record revenue. Collectively, data-centric businesses grew 22 percent, led by 26 percent YoY growth in DCG. PC-centric revenue was up 16 percent on continued strength in the commercial and gaming segments. Excellent operating margin leverage and a lower tax rate drove record quarterly EPS.

"Stronger than expected customer demand across our PC and data-centric businesses continued in the third quarter. This drove record revenue and another raise to our full-year outlook, which is now up more than six billion dollars from our January expectations. We are thrilled that in a highly competitive market, customers continue to choose Intel," said Bob Swan, Intel CFO and Interim CEO. "In the fourth quarter, we remain focused on the challenge of supplying the incredible market demand for Intel products to support our customers' growth. We expect 2018 will be another record year for Intel, and our transformation positions us to win share in an expanded $300 billion total addressable market."

IBASE Technology Inc. (TPEx: 8050), a leader in the manufacture of industrial motherboards and embedded systems, announces the new MI995 in mini ITX form factor (170x170 mm) based on the latest 8th Gen Intel Core / Xeon E family processors and Intel CM246/QM370 mobile chipset.

The MI995 low-power Mini-ITX delivers stunning graphics and media performance and supports up to three independent displays in eDP, HDMI 2.0a, DVI-D and DisplayPort outputs, which makes it ideal for gaming/entertainment, digital signage and POS applications. The motherboard has two DDR4-2666 SO-DIMM sockets accepting up to 32GB memory with ECC. Apart from enhanced performance of CPU and graphics, the MI995 features optimized I/O with onboard 6x USB 3.1, 4x USB 2.0, 4x COM, and up to 4x SATA III to empower real-time IoT and data-intensive applications.

Soldered thermal interface material, or STIM, has been one of Intel's key feature-additions to its high-end 9th generation Core i7 and Core i9 processors. Besides higher clock-speeds, STIM is the only feature that sets its refreshed Core X 9000-series family apart from Core X 7000-series. STIM is also only given to the i9-9900K and i7-9700K in the mainstream-desktop space. The 28-core Xeon W-3175X was touted by Intel to be a high-end desktop (HEDT) processor initially, before Intel decided to retain the Xeon brand and target the gray-area between HEDTs and workstations. This also means that the W-3175X will lack STIM, as confirmed by an Intel spokesperson in an interview with PC World.

Soldered TIM is preferred by PC enthusiasts as it offers superior heat-transfer between the CPU die and the integrated heatspreader. Intel's decision to equip the Core X 9000-series and higher-end Coffee Lake-Refresh parts with it, is aimed at improving the thermals and overclocking headrooms of its products. The lack of STIM for the W-3175X speaks for its intended use-case - a workstation processor that can be overclocked, provided it's de-lidded and cooled by exotic methods such as liquid nitrogen evaporators. Intel's branding decisions could be guided by AMD's decision to side-brand its 24-core and 32-core Ryzen Threadripper processors as "WX," which focuses on their workstation proficiency while slightly toning down their PC enthusiast appeal.

Although the big stars of today's Intel event have been the new desktop processors, the company also wanted to take this opportunity to launch its new beasts for the workstation field. These are the Intel Xeon W-3175X, which are destined to conquer ambitious users in that professional segment. These unlocked microprocessors, similar (but not equal) to what we saw at Computex in June, have 28 cores, 56 threads and base frequencies of 3.1 GHz, although they can reach 4.3 GHz.

These chips support 68 PCIe 3.0 lanes (44 on the CPU, 24 on the chipset), and there is another important feature on the memory front: the 6-channel DDR4 support allows the user to configure these systems with up to 512 GB at 2666 MHz (ECC and standard). This processor's TDP is 255 W and is based on Intel's Skylake-X architecture.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information and diagnostics utility. Version 2.11.0 introduces support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-series "Turing" graphics cards, including the RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, and RTX 2070. Support is also added for a few exotic OEM variants we discovered over the months, including GTX 750 Ti (GM107-A), GTX 1050 Ti Mobile 4 GB, Quadro P1000, Tesla P100 DGXS, GeForce 9200. From the AMD stable, we add support for "Vega 20," "Fenghuang" semi-custom SoC for Zhongshan Subor, Ryzen 5 Pro 2500U, 5 Pro 2400G, 3 Pro 2200G, 3 Pro 2300U, 3 2200GE, Athlon 200GE, and Embedded V1807B. Intel UHD 610, UHD P630 (Xeon), Coffee Lake GT3e (i5-8259U), are now supported.

Among the new features are system RAM usage sensors, temperature monitoring offsets for AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series processors, and the ability to identify USB-C display output, GDDR6 memory standard, and 16 Gbit density memory chips. Several under-the-hood improvements were made, including WDDM-based memory monitoring for AMD GPUs, replacing ADL sensors that tend to be buggy. GPU-Z also cleans up QueryExternal files from your Temp folder. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.11.0

The change-log follows.

Crucial , a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of DDR4 2933 MT/s Registered DIMM server modules, a new offering in its server memory product portfolio. Designed to keep servers running at full speed and peak efficiency in support of Intel's next-generation Xeon processor product families, the new RDIMM modules enable IT users to get the most out of their server infrastructure deployments.

"Our new DDR4 2933 MT/s RDIMMs are designed to deliver the speed required to maximise the memory throughput in the next generation of servers," says Teresa Kelley, VP & GM, Micron Consumer Products Group. "Today's data centres are running memory intensive applications that require a higher degree of overall system performance, and our new RDIMM modules were designed to meet this next level of system performance."

Using Intel Xeon Scalable processors and the OpenVINO toolkit, Intel and Philips tested two healthcare use cases for deep learning inference models: one on X-rays of bones for bone-age-prediction modeling, the other on CT scans of lungs for lung segmentation. In these tests, Intel and Philips achieved a speed improvement of 188 times for the bone-age-prediction model, and a 38 times speed improvement for the lung-segmentation model over the baseline measurements.

Intel Xeon Scalable processors appear to be the right solution for this type of AI workload. Our customers can use their existing hardware to its maximum potential, while still aiming to achieve quality output resolution at exceptional speeds," said Vijayananda J., chief architect and fellow, Data Science and AI at Philips HealthSuite Insights.

The introduction of 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX at $1,799 has demolished the competitiveness of the similarly priced Core i9-7980XE, forcing Intel to "productize" its Skylake-X XCC (extreme core-count) silicon for the client-segment. We've already seen one or two motherboards for this platform at Computex, notably the ASUS ROG Dominus (pictured below). Intel's demo platform is reportedly powered by a GIGABYTE-made motherboard. Both these boards may have been prototypes based on Intel C629 "Lewisburg" chipset, as Intel was still mulling on whether to even launch the product.

With the 2990WX out, the fate of the client-segment cousin of the Xeon Platinum 8180 is sealed, and so is that of the C629. In its client-segment avatar, the chipset will be branded "Intel X599 Express." This chipset will support new SKUs derived from the "Skylake-X" XCC silicon (probably 24-core, 26-core, and 28-core), in the LGA3647 package. The platform features not just up to 28 cores, but also a 6-channel DDR4 memory interface, which will probably support up to 192 GB of memory on the client-platform. There's also a rumor that Intel could launch new 20-core and 22-core LGA2066 processors. Those, coupled with the 8-core LGA1151 processor, will be Intel's fig-leaf until late-2019.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2018 financial results. Record second quarter revenue of $17.0 billion was up 15 percent YoY driven by strength across the business and customer demand for performance-leading Intel platforms. Collectively, data-centric businesses grew 26 percent, approaching 50 percent of total revenue. PC-centric revenue was up 6 percent on strength in the commercial and enthusiast segments. Operating margin leverage and lower tax rate drove excellent EPS growth.

"After five decades in tech, Intel is poised to deliver our third record year in a row. We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the need to process, store and move data, which has never been more pervasive or more valuable," said Bob Swan, Intel CFO and Interim CEO. "Intel is now competing for a $260 billion market opportunity, and our second quarter results show that we're winning. As a result of the continued strength we are seeing across the business, we are raising our full year revenue and earnings outlook."

Intel's Xeon Phi lineup, which started as Larrabee. has never seen any commercial success in the market despite big promises from the big blue giant that its programming model would be more productive for developers coming from x86. In the meantime, NVIDIA GPUs have taken over the world of supercomputing, with the latest generation Volta decimating Intel Xeon Phi offerings.

Intel's plan was to release a new generation of Xeon Phi called "Knights Hill", on a 10 nanometer process. However, constant delays ramping up 10 nm, paired with generally low demand for Xeon Phi, forced the company to abandon this project. Now the company announces that they are stopping production for eight currently shipping Xeon Phi models.

Airports are the latest battleground for AMD and Intel as the two vie to catch the attention of IT managers in the midst of an AI and big-data inflection point that promises to trigger a gold rush for enterprise processors. AMD took to San Jose International Airport with its latest AMD EPYC static ads targeted at IT managers stuck with Intel Xeon for its historic market leadership. AMD EPYC processors offer "more performance, more security, and more value" than Intel Xeon processors, the ads claim, but not before landing a mean punch in the general area of Intel's belt.

ASUS, the leading IT Company in server systems, server motherboards, workstations and workstation motherboards today announced new workstation products built upon the latest Intel Mehlow platform, including the WS C246 PRO and WS C246M PRO motherboards, and the E500 G5 and E500 G5 SFF workstations. The Intel Mehlow platform offers up to a 50% performance improvement on multi-threaded workloads, enhancing overall system performance compared to the previous platform. The Intel Mehlow platform also includes support for the latest Intel Xeon E processors (Coffee Lake-S), which are designed to provide small and medium-sized businesses high performance for professional workloads, combined with leading reliability and security. With the new Intel Mehlow platform, Intel Xeon E processors provide better support for features such as 4K UHD video rendering, suitable for content creators.